


Outrun it (or at least try to)

by hedgehodgy



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, WandaVision (TV), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Brother-Sister Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Headcanon, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Parent Erik Lehnsherr, Pietro Maximoff Needs a Hug, dadneto, why isnt that already a tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:08:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedgehodgy/pseuds/hedgehodgy
Summary: ‘Sorry, Erik, you won’t ever get to meet your eldest daughter because she’s as dead as your youngest.’Peter had this old photo. He looked a little different in the photo; he was laughing with a stranger that no one else recognised. Unfortunately, his friends and teammates weren't very willing to drop the subject.Erik, of all people, wouldn't drop the subject.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr & Pietro Maximoff, Erik Lehnsherr & Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff & Wanda Maximoff
Comments: 42
Kudos: 714





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I made a lil post on tumblr to do with a headcanon about Peter's hair being different colours in DoFP and Apocalypse. This spawned from it, though it's a lil different to that post. A little rambly and pointless maybe but I've enjoyed writing it.
> 
> You'll notice I've changed the ages/timeline a little. In this Peter is 24 years old. He was 16 in the events of DoFP, only eight years having passed since then. Just because I think the timeline in the movies is terrible and kinda unrealistic/difficult to believe.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

Peter didn’t have very many super sentimental items, surprisingly. There weren’t many things that he found himself feeling very attached to (because why bother, when anything he could ever want he could acquire in literal seconds? Where was the attachment in that?). There were a few things that he considered pretty sacred to him: his Walkman, his goggles and his leather jacket.

Those things were like a triad, the foundations of _Peter._ The things that could be placed around a summoning circle to make his ghost appear or whatever. They were synonymous to him. Everyone at Xavier’s school knew, _don’t touch Peter’s Walkman, don’t touch his goggles, don’t touch his jacket_. They were precious. They were _Peter’s_.

What sat in the centre of that triad, the most precious of all the things, was a single crinkled photograph.

Maybe Peter was a little over-dramatic. It wouldn’t be surprising considering his genes. Or maybe Peter was just a coward. Either way, the photograph was the one of the things that Peter kept on him at all times, much like his Walkman, his goggles and his jacket – and it was also something that he kept hid away, fiercely defensive and almost…almost protective? Was it dumb to be protective over a _photograph?_

Probably. Luckily, Peter had a good track record in being dumb, so he doubted it made a difference.

The picture wasn’t anything special. Creased in the corners, frayed along the edges, a little scratched up from so many years of being kept on-hand and shoved hastily into pockets.

It wasn’t that Peter didn’t want anyone to look at the photo. It was the fact that he just _didn’t want to talk about it_.

Peter was good at running from this problems. That was what he was doing with this photo; it was what he was doing with almost everything else in his life, such as, y’know, _living in the same building as his dad and not telling him that he was his dad_. Head in the sand, ostrich style. Earphones on, music playing, goggles adjusted, outrunning all the things that made him uncomfortable and made him _feel_ stuff.

Mom always said that shit’d catch up to him one day, and Mom was usually right.

It wasn’t a big deal. Anticlimactic, almost. Peter was sat in one of the mansion’s many cosy common areas, tucked up on one of the bay windows. He had the photo in-hand, holding it discreetly to the side so to all the others in the common room it looked like he was just gazing out of the window, distracted by the music playing through his earphones. He heard a shriek from the garden outside and through the window Peter saw one of the mini mutants tumbling from a tree she’d been over-confidently scaling. The branch she was falling from was high up enough to hurt and Peter, well, didn’t really have time to fold up his photo before he had to get a move on. Plus he’d already been lost in thought.

So Peter let the photo fall from his fingers and zipped downstairs, through the mansion’s halls, across the lawn and under the tree just in time to catch the falling girl. She was still screaming even once she was in his arms, taking much longer than Peter – as all the world did – to allow time to catch up.

“You’re good, you’re fine,” Peter assured her, setting her on her feet but holding on to a skinny shoulder to check she wasn’t gonna faint on him. “I got you,”

“Uh-huh,” the girl swayed, disorientated. Her friends were already swarming them, asking whether she was okay, whether her life had flashed before her eyes, whether she’d meant to fall, was she gonna try to climb up it again-

“No!” a voice called, prompting the kids to spring apart and stand to attention. Raven was marching towards them in all her blue glory, wearing just a matching navy blue jacket to ward off the chill. “No more climbing trees – not that there should have been any tree-climbing in the first place without proper supervision. Inside, the lot of you,”

“But Peter’s supervision now,” one of the mini mutants argued.

“I meant adult supervision,”

“Haha, good one. Very original,” Peter drawled.

Raven pinned the kids with a stare and they scurried away within moments, the fallen girl in question calling over her shoulder, “Thank you, Peter! You saved my ass!”

“Language, ya little brat,” Peter scolded, though he was like 70% sure the kids had picked it up from him in passing.

Raven punched him in the shoulder, her way of saying thanks, already backtracking to follow the wayward students back inside to give them another talking-to about doing dumb shit. In the past few weeks there had been a couple of almost-crisis’s, repeatedly averted by Peter who had little else to do with his time besides rescuing the children from their own dumb selves in-between training in the Danger Room.

Funny, how he went from being babysat to being _the_ babysitter.

Peter was back in the common room in a blink, strolling in with a swagger. Those who had been sitting round with him were all on their feet, gathered mostly near the bay window where Peter had been seated.

“Admiring my heroic rescue, huh?” he said, rubbing his suddenly-dry eyes. It’d been such a short, fast run that he hadn’t thought to tug on his goggles.

Just as he hadn’t thought to pocket the photo which was now being held by – _fuck._

Peter hadn’t been paying much attention to who’d been hanging out in the common room with him, all chilling out on a rare, quiet Saturday afternoon. Scott and Jean had been watching a movie, cuddling sappily on the rug and not really paying attention to said movie. Kurt had been the only one actually watching said movie, his tail swishing cheerfully to the bouncy soundtrack. Ororo had been curled up on an armchair irritably trying to figure out a rubix cube after seeing Peter complete one in record time, naturally. Even the Professor was up here, pretending to be grading some papers Hank had dropped off, when actually he’d been preoccupied with sending the occasional mental clue to Ororo. Hank himself bobbed in and out of the common room at irregular intervals, probably switching between his science-y work, his teaching work, and his _Raven_ work, if you caught the drift.

The most peculiar addition to their chilled-out Saturday company was Erik. Peter had pretended not to notice the man when he’d appeared at the mansion yesterday, disregarding Raven and Ororo’s (literal) prodding. In all honesty, Peter hadn’t entirely noticed him in the common room, though he probably should have. Wherever the Professor went, Magneto was usually nearby, quietly lurking with a snarky comment or the offer of a round of chess.

And here he stood now, holding Peter’s picture, _looking_ at the picture.

 _We don’t look much alike_ , Peter found himself thinking in-between his flustered horror as he tried to figure out how to snatch the picture back without being skewered by a man who was notoriously pretty skittish.

“Heroic as always, Pete,” Ororo said, oblivious to Peter’s dilemma as she flashed Peter a smile as she drifted away from the window. Peter blinked. He’d already forgotten what words he’d said when he’d returned to the room. Kurt teleported himself back to the sofa. Scott shrugged in disinterest and went to sit back down on the rug. Jean remained, peering obviously at the photo along with Erik.

Peter vaguely registered the Professor twitching at the curses very clearly streaming through his quick-paced mind.

“Whoops,” Peter said, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Didn’t realise I’d left that there. Thanks, man,”

He held a hand out for the photo to be given back.

Erik finally looked up at him, his expression unreadable (not that that was any different than usual). He nodded once and passed the photo to Peter, who folded it up and tucked it into his pocket in a rapid blur of arm movements.

He turned on his heel to bail on the common room hang out – so much for an uneventful Saturday – but found himself halting when Jean said, “Wow, you looked really different in that,”

Peter froze and didn’t totally know why. _It’s just an observation, and a pretty understandable one_ , he told himself to soothe his own wired nerves.

“Yeah,” Peter shrugged dismissively. “Teenage angst and all that, I thought I looked cool. It was a phase, Mom,”

Scott perked up at that, like a sniffer dog catching a scent. “What phase?” he asked, hopping back to his feet. “You mean you haven’t always looked like a frosted wannabe rockstar? Let’s see it-,”

“No,” said Peter quickly. “Nope, nuh-uh,”

“Is it embarrassing?” asked Ororo, also drawn back in. “Were you a – how do you call it, a punk? A hippy?”

“No,” Peter repeated, groaning. “Leave off, it’s nothing interesting. If you wanna know about hippies, ask the prof,”

Charles, who looked distracted, shook himself and frowned. Peter winked.

“Was the girl your girlfriend?” Jean questioned, a teasing smile on her lips. No doubt she could sense Peter’s feelings, his embarrassment and shiftiness and eagerness to move on from this subject. The problem was, Peter’s mind was practically inaccessible to her, so his reasons for his feelings were lost on her and her teasing was actually _really_ unappreciated. “She was cute,” she added innocently.

Peter felt a snap in his chest like a sharp rubber band. “She wasn’t my _girlfriend_ ,” he said sharply, his sudden frustration masking the natural disgust he felt at the implication. “When I say leave off, I mean _leave off_ ,”

With that, Peter turned tail and left. He knew that he was leaving behind a setting of awkwardness and confusion and a whole lot of misunderstanding. It would have been easy just to say, _hey, don’t take the piss, that picture’s kinda special and the girl in it is my-_

Shit. Shit, he couldn’t even think the word.

It had been ten years, near enough. Ten years since the photo had been taken. Nine years since she’d been gone. Eight years since the Pentagon incident. Six years since discovering that Magneto was his father. Three months since finding himself quite regularly in the man’s company and never _telling him_.

Peter thought that he knew himself pretty well. He knew that he was an over-thinker, a worrier, beneath the egotistic exterior he usually put up to compensate for all his mundane anxieties. He knew that one of his biggest fears about telling his father, who had lost his wife and daughter just a few months ago, that he had an adult son who wasn’t exactly the best of the bunch. Peter didn’t fear his reaction, per say – he’d be able to take it if the guy blew up at him or, more likely, blew him off. No, what Peter was more worried about was everything that came _afterwards._ He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life dancing around the guy, constantly feeling a squeeze in his throat when he was around, knowing that they were related but never actually acknowledging it. Because why would they?

Peter dreaded the thought of having to _explain_ everything to Erik because, let’s be honest, he’d have to give him the full run-down. Erik would want to know about Peter’s birth mother and how she’d been during her pregnancy, specifically why she had kept it hidden from him, her husband. Peter would be fine with explaining that, giving a short version of that story because the guy probably did deserve to know why his pregnant wife had hidden herself and her pregnancy away from him, and also how her labour had ended with her hemorrhaging and passing away.

What Peter _didn’t_ want to explain – though he knew he’d have to – was the fact that Mom had been carrying twins _(and she'd have survived the birth had there been only one of them)._ Erik had _children_ and his late wife had kept them from him, something that her sister had respected and followed through with as she raised them as her own. Erik deserved to know about all that. He deserved to know that their childhoods had been comfortable and content even without him; that his son and daughter had both turned out to be mutants just like their father.

 _But no, sorry, Erik, you won’t ever get to meet your eldest daughter because she’s as dead as your youngest,_ Peter thought bitterly.

Peter really wanted to bash his head against a wall. It was unfair, he thought. The universe had really left it to the shittier twin to be the one that lived and have to explain to their all-powerful, mentally-unstable father why his equally all-powerful, mentally-unstable daughter was no longer with them.

More rapid curse words shot through his mind. It was no wonder that Charles appeared at his door with a serious expression after half an hour or so of Peter wallowing in his room, music blaring as if it’d block out his own thoughts.

“I’m surprised you’re not out running,” the Professor observed, half out-loud and half in Peter’s head to be heard over the noise. Peter scoffed and turned down the music a bit without looking like he’d even moved.

“Yeah, me too,” he said. “Whaddya need, prof? Grocery run? Could of packages dropped off?”

He didn’t need to look at Charles to know that he was frowning. “I wanted to see how you are,” he said, his chair whirring as he scooted further into Peter’s mess of a room. “There were some…interesting sentiments in the common room earlier. I’d like to help, if I can. I can feel you're struggling with something,”

 _Course you can._ Peter grimaced at the ceiling, his hands folded behind his head in a pretence of relaxation.

It took him a second to really _think_ about what Charles had just said and come to a pretty annoying confusion.

“Fuckin’ Raven,” he grumbled, though he knew the fault fell directly on him. _He’d_ told Raven that Erik was his father; Raven told Ororo; Ororo didn’t have any natural buffers between her mind and their resident telepaths, like Peter. Of-fuckin'-course Charles would find out sooner or later, and Jean wouldn't be far behind.

“Hm,” Charles said neutrally. “Raven and Hank have had a few curious passing thoughts that were already making me suspect. It wasn’t entirely Ororo,”

Peter closed his eyes and sat upright, turning to pin the professor with as menacing a look as he could summon. Though internally he knew that he probably just looked like an angry puppy, especially in contrast to his father and sister. Now, the two of them were ( _had been_ ) experts in powerful glares.

“You can’t tell him,” he said.

“I know,” nodded Charles. “It isn’t my secret to tell, Peter. All I’m curious about is why you won’t tell him yourself,”

 _None of your business_ , thought Peter, not quite loud or clear enough for Charles to make out in the mess that was his brain (messier than his room, and that was fuckin’ saying something).

It would have been like his father to snap at Charles to leave him and his thoughts alone. It would have been like Wanda to say something smart and biting that’d leave even the famous Professor X reeling. Peter spent about a moment trying to summon the energy and presence to be like either of them and drill it into the professor’s bald head that he didn’t wanna talk about this, preferably _ever_. If he couldn’t outrun it, he could at least _avoid_ it. He was good at that, too.

Unfortunately, Peter hadn’t inherited much from his paternal side, not in looks nor feelings. He felt himself physically deflate and tapped his fingers against his knees, thinking of what to say.

“It’s never the right time,” he eventually shrugged. “Don’t see the point in changing how things already are. You know he exactly wouldn’t be jumping for joy,”

Charles pursed his lips, ever-serious when it came to the topic of his friend. “Erik saw something in that photo of yours. He could see a resemblance,” he said. “I tried not to pry, but it was…loud,”

 _That_ threw Peter for a loop. He felt his heart fall to his stomach and swallowed with a little bit of difficulty. Somehow, amongst all his other thoughts, he’d forgotten that they’d actually originated because of Erik _holding_ that photo. Looking at it, at _her_. A resemblance?

Confused, Peter pulled out the photo and unfolded it. He scanned the faces in it – usually he only ever looked at Wanda’s, but now he looked at his own, too. He glanced up at Charles, “Do you know…?”

Charles extended a hand, asking to see the photo.

Peter felt himself seize up for a second, flooded with nausea, before reasoning, _she’s not a secret, she’s not something I should hide as if I'm ashamed of her. Other people are allowed to see her. Her memory isn’t just my own._

Peter handed over the photo, feeling many years older than he was.

For a few seconds, Charles didn’t say anything. He stared over the photo and actually _smiled_ , a small and fond thing as if he were a relative seeing an old baby photo. Peter couldn’t help but shift and twitch, waiting for his judgement. He knew that the photo, innocent as it was, held many things in it. Himself, for one. He was fourteen in the photo, his face young and rounded and cheeks dimpled under a open-mouthed smile as he laughed. He wore an ugly Christmas sweater knitted for him by a neighbour and, most startlingly, his hair was short and inky black.

Peter wasn’t alone in the photo. Wanda stood besides him, her ugly Christmas sweater made up of a matching pattern in different colours (blue for him, red for her). She was grinning widely, all teeth and crinkled eyes and a wrinkled nose, her laughter covering her whole face. Peter still remembered the morning that the picture had been taken; her braided hair had been done by him, entwined around festive silver and red ribbons. It wasn't even Christmas yet, it was a random day in December but Wanda had really taken to the holiday. It had been her favourite day of the year.

There wasn’t much in the photo to indicate exactly who Peter and Wanda were to each other. They’d been caught mid-joke by their aunt/mother, the photo showing them with their arms wrapped around each other as they tried to keep themselves upright, almost from collapsing with laughter. Tears were shining in Peter’s eyes and Wanda was pink and flushed. Peter could still remember her wheezing, breathless laugh. 

“Have I ever mentioned I had a twin sister?” Peter whispered, something cold and ancient aching in his chest.

Charles’s eyes shot up, face coloured with surprise. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he replied. “No…” He was looking at the photo differently now and even, startlingly, snorted out, “My god, _two_ of you,”

“Mom said the same thing, probably,” Peter rolled his eyes, torn between affection and heartbreak. "She, uh, died giving birth to us. We were raised by our aunt,"

“I see. I'm very sorry to hear that. Your _sister…"_ Charles observed. “Ah, I see it now. She looks just like Erik did when he was young, I'd say,”

It was Peter’s turn to be surprised. “What, really?”

He felt a nudge against his brain ( _god_ , such a weird, freaky sensation-) and the briefest flash of an image appeared behind Peter’s lids when he blinked. The image was of Erik, young as Charles had said. The resemblance between his face and Wanda’s – the cheekbones and jaw, the shape of the eyes, the dark auburn hair – were much more pronounced in this form. The image shifted to show another image, one of Erik laughing, and his almost-too-wide smile was _exactly_ like Wanda’s.

Peter frightened himself a little with how quickly he felt himself nearly tear up at the realisation. He hopped to his feet and began ‘pacing’ around the room, picking things up as he went, trying to occupy himself before he could do something super embarrassing in front of Charles. The room needed tidying anyway.

Charles let him zip around without complaint and, seconds later when Peter was done and the floor was miraculously clear, handed the photo back with a sad-looking smile.

“I realise how little we actually know about you, Peter,” he said. “You’re a curiosity. Whenever you’re ready, I would love to talk with you more. You are a valuable member of our team– a friend, should you allow me call you that. I will leave you be for now, but my door is always open should you need it,”

Peter couldn’t mask his surprise. Where were Charles’s questions? _Where is your sister now? Did you just refer to her in past tense? What happened to her? When will you tell Erik?_ He spluttered like an idiot and Charles just reached out to pat Peter’s arm. The whir of his electric chair comically broke the heavy, emotional silence that had fallen over them both and soon faded into background noise of the mansion. Peter just stood that, continuing to look and feel like a fool.

Eventually, Peter shook himself, folded up his photo, shrugged on his jacket and snapped on his goggles and snatched up his Walkman. There was too much _stuff_ in the mansion – too many people, too many eyes, too many feelings and problems and fears that Peter wasn’t ready to face. He’d lingered for much longer than he should have; he should have taken himself on a brisk jog across the continent as soon as he’d realised that people were paying him more attention than what he was comfortable with (the _wrong_ type of attention, for that matter).

So, belated though it was, Peter set out.

He knew he couldn’t exactly out-run all his problems, but damn it if he didn’t try every time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Erik doesn't let him drop the subject.
> 
> (...Good)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I actually got this finished but holy shit I actually got this finished.
> 
> Fair warning that it's, um, a bit angsty. I couldn't help myself and I apologise in advance aaaaa this probably isn't gonna cure anyone's post-Wandavision-finale blues. I totally diverged from the initial headcanon and I'm not sure if I was suuuper consistent with the themes/feelings throughout but today's just been a lot and I've just been writing as stuff comes to me. Lots of feelings.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy anyway!! And thank you to everyone who's read and commented/given kudos! :D

Peter had always been _fast_. He’d always been capable of out-running other kids on the playground. He’d always been superior at sports, even though he'd always much preferred a good TV show or game console. He’d always ate his food fast, and felt hungry again _fast._ He powered through illnesses fast and got over his tantrums fast. He was fast at reading, writing, getting his homework done. When Peter had been a young kid, his mother and teachers had thought he was some kinda child genius, even though it was pretty obvious that Wanda had absorbed all of his common sense while in the womb and Peter was - to put it simply - just _fast_. And at first, there was nothing too odd about it. 

When Peter was eleven, things changed. It was another thing he hated thinking about (and _boy_ , he hadn’t realised how long that list was). The bottom line was trauma. Most mutant abilities manifested during moments of extreme stress and fear and yeah, that was what Peter had been feeling when his mother’s dickbag husband had had him cornered in their tiny dining room. Wanda’s name had been in his mouth, mixed with threats that made him ill.

The next thing Peter knew, the world had slowed. He punched his stepfather more times than he could count and when time sped up again he went _soaring_ across the room. Peter, overwhelmed, bounced back and forth off the walls of the dining room, knocking over the furniture, looking to the naked eye as if his whole body was vibrating under the stress of his newfound speed.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the decorative mirror hanging there in the dining room. His hair, naturally a kind of dirty blonde, had transformed into a shock of pale grey that bordered on white. Peter had screamed at himself, thinking he’d turned into a ghost, and punched the mirror quickly as if to erase the image. The glass shattered completely under his touch, the shards so small they almost looked like glitter.

Seven years bad luck, that was, plus a dozen more.

He wasn’t alone in his transformation. Wanda was there at his defence, because of course she was, and their stepfather had found himself being flung again, this time through the front window, carried by a burst of red sparks that were born from Wanda’s palms. Her eyes, once grey-blue, had darkened to a shade of brown that rivalled Peter’s. She then held him still as he shuddered and writhed and fought for control over his own body, even as she cried over her own changes. His hair, her eyes. His speed, her magic. Their pain and fear.

Wanda had held him together for years and he did his best to hold her in return. They both suffered and struggled with their mutations. They were terrified of them, understandably, they tried to repress them for the first couple of months. Peter let his stepfather (who for some reason didn't ditch them after being attacked twice by preteen mutants) beat him around, to keep him from turning on his mother or sister. Wanda let Mom scream and throw things at her to keep her preoccupied until she sobered up again.

Peter dyed his silvery hair just a couple of days after its freaky transformation. Wanda helped him, going with him to buy the box dye and working together to figure out how to do it right. He ended up dyeing it an inky, angsty black, easier to apply and care for than any natural shades. The teasing that he’d received from his peers had been ruthless, sure, though it would have been much worse. 

Peter ended up keeping his hair dyed for years. Wanda even jumped on the bandwagon with him, though she was much bolder than Peter and dyed hers various shades of browns and reds (because she had a _theme_ to keep to), including bright streaks of colour whenever she felt like it. She’d been trying to convince Peter to turn his blue around the time that she…departed.

Peter never dyed his hair again after she was gone. He kept telling himself that he’d get round to redyeing it eventually, that he’d top it up as soon as his grey started to peek through again. Over the weeks, the black dye faded. He met Logan, Charles, Hank and his father when his hair had been at an awkward stage of steely-grey – not quite black, not quite silver. Dry from all the damage that the dyes had done and growing too long and shaggy because he _couldn’t be bothered_ to care for himself once Wanda was gone.

Phew. Anyway.

His hair was silver again now, and there were enough new beauty products out there for the world to look at him and think it was some stupid fashion statement to match his silver garb.

“How do you do it?” Kurt asked one morning, a couple of days after the whole _photo_ incident.

“Do what?” Peter and Ororo asked together, distracted by the new high score Peter was setting on the Pac-Man machine (he’d decided to move it to the school for all the kiddos to use – he’d wasted years on it and recently it had just been collecting dust in Mom’s basement).

“Make your hairs so light,” Kurt pointed, voice laced with curiosity. Scott and Jean flanked him as they all peered over at the PacMan screen – their little trio was never separate for very long.

Ororo gave a chuckle, “En Sabah Nur was quite the stylist,” she said. She, like Peter, let the trauma and shame roll off her with humour. “We could not be horsemen and not look the part, huh?”

Peter pictured the four horsemen – Storm with her sick mohawk, Angel with his crazy tattoos and metal wings, Psylocke in that hot unitard with all the cut-outs. And then…his father, Erik, whose maroon cape and helmet had been hilariously muted and conservative in comparison to the others’. A literal father amongst trendy teenagers.

Peter realised that there were eyes on him now, awaiting his answer.

“I’m all au natural, man,” Peter told them without looking away from the game’s screen. “No crazy doomsday-bringers have touched my hair – I mean, except that one time,”

Ororo snorted and Peter allowed it, grinning casually even though his chest was squeezing.

(He hadn’t been able to really touch his hair without feeling weird about it since the ordeal with Apocalypse. He knew it looked messier than usual, but the prospect of pulling a comb through it, tugging at all the knots and tangles that were laced through it…ew. Shudder.)

“Wait, you really don’t dye it?” asked Jean, sounding surprised. “I thought it was dark, like your roots,”

“Yeah, I dunno why they’re so much darker than the rest,” shrugged Peter. She’d been the only one to see the picture besides Erik and Charles, he remembered, so he figured he had to explain. “I _used_ to dye it, like after my mutation manifested and I was all freaked out with the grey. Like I said, it was a phase,”

“Oh. What colour was it before you manifested?”

“More importantly,” Scott interrupted. “You ever gonna show us that picture, Maximoff? I feel all left out,”

“That’s the point,” Peter quipped.

“So do I,” said Kurt, and since he was far sweeter and more likeable than Scott, Peter almost felt bad.

“Too bad, my guys,” he said, trying not to sound too stiff. “That picture’s old history,”

“Oh, _c’mon_ -,”

“Scott,” Jean interrupted, probably sensing Peter's rising irritation. “Just drop it,”

And he did, naturally. The little shit was a sucker for his red-haired crush and Peter would have found it more tease-able had he not been so relieved for the change of topic.

Peter figured that’d be the end of the whole ‘Peter’s hair’ topic of conversation for, like, ever. Instead, the ineffectual news that he hadn’t actually _chosen_ to be Quick _silver_ and that his hair was naturally this colour did its rounds throughout the school, as all points of intrigue and gossip did no matter how insignificant. He got a few comments from the likes of Jubilee and Raven about it, and a bunch of the kids seemed to look at him a little differently than usual. He didn’t know if his hair being naturally silver made a difference in how everyone looked at him but he was, all of a sudden, kinda self-conscious about it. No one had been bothered about it before – why now?

Shit, he felt like he was an eleven-year-old baby mutant all over again.

Thankfully, the seasons were at a turning point, going from mild and nippy to cold and icy. November brought with it an excuse for Peter to tug on a beanie every now and then without drawing questions. To keep his ears warm, of course. Peter naturally ran a couple of degrees cooler than the average person anyways, so he needed the layers.

It was on one of those early November evenings (a week or so after the photo incident; no, he wasn’t counting the days, trying to figure out when everyone would forget about it even though it wasn’t even a super big deal-) when Peter found himself trudging into the mansion’s kitchen. It was getting late, so usually the kitchen was empty unless there was a drama going on between the tween girls and boys.

Peter didn’t bother to do a proper cursory glance of the room before he zipped in, seeing only one person sat on one of the stools by the counter. All he wanted was one of the cupcakes that he knew Jubilee and Ororo had baked and stashed in a tupperware container somewhere before he headed up to his room for a shower and bed.

Imagine his surprise when he was rummaging through the cupboards and happened to glance over his shoulder. _Erik_ was the dude sat the counter. Peter nearly tripped over himself and stared like an idiot until the man noticed him.

“Oh,” he said. “Good evening, Peter,”

“Wassup,” Peter said lamely, kicking close the cupboard he’d just been looking through. “What are you, uh, doing down here? I just mean – I don’t usually see you,”

_And you should be gone by now_ , he added internally. It had been a few days since he’d last seen Erik floating around, which usually meant he’d left the mansion again to do…whatever it was he did when he wasn’t here.

(Kicking puppies and terrorising governments, probably.)

Erik glanced down at the counter in front of him. There was a newspaper there, a metal pen magically filling in the crossword on the back page while Erik himself cradled a cup of tea between both hands. A teaspoon stirred itself within the cup, creating a pleasant tinkling sound. Next to the newspaper sat Peter’s prize – the tupperware of cupcakes. He could see through the plastic that the frosting was blue with silver sprinkles.

It was suddenly starting to feel like this meeting hadn’t been an accident.

It began to feel like a _conspiracy_ when Erik slid the tupperware in his direction and gestured vaguely to the stool on his right. “Feel free to sit,” he said. However, it sounded like more of a direction than an invitation.

Peter glanced around to make sure they were alone, that Raven hadn’t contorted herself to hide in a cupboard and the Professor wasn’t lurking in the pantry. Peter wouldn’t be surprised if either of them went out of their way to try to set up a conversation between Peter and his long-lost father. Alas, they were alone.

Peter sat down, cracking open a can of coke and grabbing the tupperware box as he did.

“Want one?” he offered.

Erik shook his head, but Peter had already unwrapped one of the cupcakes and was offering half of it to the imposing mutant. Erik blinked, looked contemplative, and shrugged. He moved his teacup away from the saucer to use it as a plate, breaking off a tiny piece of the cake and trying it. It took every bit of self-control Peter had to not gobble down all six of the cupcakes within a few seconds. He mimicked Erik’s smaller bites instead, swinging his feet under the stool as he waited for his _father_ to say something. No way did he want to just hang out for the hell of it.

“I don’t think I ever thanked you,” Erik _finally_ said, glancing up. “For what you did all those years ago, freeing me from that cell. If not for you, I would still be rotting in there or filled with plastic bullets,”

_Nice, thanks for that metal image_ , thought Peter, trying not to grimace.

“Ah, it’s all good,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “I was sixteen and bored. Didn’t really do it out of the goodness of my heart, to be honest, heh,”

“ _Sixteen_?” repeated Erik, looking affronted. Peter hummed, taking another bite of cake. “I knew you were young, but not a _child_. Did Charles have no sense?”

“It was Logan’s idea, apparently,” shrugged Peter, shifting. “And I’m pretty sure Charles wasn’t sober for, like, the entire time that I knew him back then. It was all good, though,”

Erik still didn’t look very pleased, and that…that was _really_ weird. Though Peter supposed even _terrorists_ could feel weird about children undertaking dangerous missions to break high-profile prisoners from extremely secure facilities, where bullets _had_ been flying and aiming to kill. No less, Peter knew that Erik had become a different man between now and then, so his newfound horror probably had good reason. He’d had a family, a child of his own. That had probably changed his perspective on a bunch of things, right?

_Did it change how he’d feel if he found out he had an adult son?_

Peter swallowed, distracting himself with a long gulp of cola. Surely Erik hadn’t asked him to sit with him just to give him an eight-years-late ‘thanks’.

The photo in his pocket suddenly felt like it was burning.

_Fuck it._

Before he could stop himself, Peter had pulled the photo out and slapped it down on the counter between them. It startled Erik, making him jump a little and his metal pen to swivel towards Peter threateningly.

“Charles said you were thinking about this,” Peter rushed out, his heart already beating way too fast (and that was saying something), feeling like it was about to wriggle out of his throat to be puked out with the rest of his guts. _Ew._

Erik’s mouth hung slightly open for a moment. He recovered himself for all of a second before his eyes turned to the photo. A flash of pain shot across his expression. He swallowed and…suddenly, he looked totally blank. Jesus. Peter wished _he_ could do that. He was an open book _way_ too often for his liking.

“Yes,” Erik said evenly, which made Peter want to scoff. “I was. That’s you?”

He inclined his head. Peter glanced down at the image of himself, strands of dark hair falling into his fourteen-year-old face. “Yeah,” he nodded lamely, propping his head on his fist. He pushed his almost-finished cupcake away from him, no longer feeling very hungry. He was _one_ odd comment away from sprinting out of there, honestly-

“Your hair,” Erik said, which was the _last_ thing Peter was expecting and it made him do a double take. “I see it’s changed. Which state is your natural one?”

Peter spluttered internally. That – _that_ was what Erik wanted to know?! Not why Peter’s _twin sister_ just happened to bear a striking resemblance to him?! Why _not_? _What the fuck is he on-?_

Externally, Peter was actually surprisingly calm, bearing a mildly bewildered expression. “Um. This,” he pointed to his head, to the strands of silver poking out from beneath his beanie. He dropped his hand as soon as he realised that it was trembling and intertwined his own fingers to keep them from tapping on something incessantly.

Erik frowned. He tugged the photo closer and Peter twitched, aching to snatch it back. _Don’t look too closely_ , he wanted to say. _Or you’ll end up seeing yourself and then you’ll_ know _and then I’ll have to explain_ -

“You were hiding your mutation,” observed Erik after a second or so, lips pressed into a line in evident disapproval.

“Well, yeah, what else was I meant to do?” Peter said, a little more sharply than he intended. But to be honest – sometimes all these ‘embrace your mutation’ speeches wore on him (he understood the sentiment and agreed, of course, but god did they sometimes oversimplify the issue-). “One day I was blonde and the next I was grey. I didn’t need that kind of attention, man, not my hyper-aware ass, so I went ahead and dyed it,”

“Childhood bullies, I assume,” Erik said.

Peter made a face, thinking, _plus strangers in the street, neighbours, teachers, my stepfather, literally fucking everyone I knew.._. “Uh-huh. Anyways, does it matter?”

“Of course it does,”

“It was _years_ back,”

“You are hiding it again, now,”

Peter frowned and tugged his beanie further on to his head, nice and secure. “Because my ears get cold,”

“You said you were blonde?” asked Erik randomly.

Peter gaped openly now, reeling at their back-and-forth ( _who knew I’d be arguing with my dad before he even knew he was my dad_ -) and with the sudden, strange change of topic. Peter glanced down at the photo, just to check that Wanda’s face hadn’t been scribbled out because _why wasn’t Erik mentioning her?!_ Was he just buttering Peter up a little before he asked the all-important question: _why does the girl in that photo look just like me?_ And then Peter would have to explain _everything_ and-

Shit, don’t spiral. Answer the question.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Blonde. Why?”

Erik pursed his lips again, his eyes boring holes into a spot on the floor. Peter realised in the following silence that his pen had stopped moving across the crossword, his spoon had stopped stirring his tea. The spoon was actually starting to look a little warped now, actually-

“You bear a striking resemblance to someone I once knew,” Erik suddenly spoke, his voice harsh and hard. “Especially with that hair. That is why I am curious,”

“ _Me_?!” spluttered Peter.

Erik grunted in affirmation.

“Oh,” said Peter, feeling all funny inside. He… _he_ looked like someone? Not Wanda? “…O-Okay?”

Five long, agonising seconds crawled by. Peter wasn’t sure what face he was making during those seconds, but it seemed enough for Erik to grow (even more) uncomfortable and lean back a little, watching Peter carefully.

“Are you not – are you not going to ask _who_?” asked Erik.

“Um. Who?” asked Peter, voice flat and dumb-sounding.

Had Erik been a less proper man, he probably would have slapped his forehead. Instead he gave a patient sigh and bit out, “My mother. You look a great deal like her. I never noticed until I saw that photo, you with the darker hair,”

Peter tried to wrap his head around that, his throat desperately dry. He hadn’t ever thought of anything like that. He knew – well, he knew he didn’t much resemble his father. He knew that his pre-mutation hair colour, the dark blonde, was a trait he’d inherited from his birth mother, who he also didn’t resemble very much according to the photos that remained of her.

Funnily enough, Peter hadn’t ever thought much about his grandparents. His Mom – well, his aunt – had told him that they had died in Holocaust. He supposed the same went for his paternal grandparents. No pictures survived of any of them. Only memories, it seemed, and Peter was desperately uncomfortable with how he was unintentionally embodying one of _Erik’s_ memories. A precious and painful memory, no less.

At least Peter could say the same. He couldn’t picture Wanda anymore, not without comparing her to Erik. Had…had Erik really been so focused on Peter’s face that he hadn’t noticed his _own_ clone within the photo?

“ _Why_ do you look like my mother?” Erik whispered, breaking off Peter’s spiralling train of thought.

He looked up, seeing that his father wasn’t directly addressing him. His fingers were on the photo, his eyes trained on Peter’s young face. As if he was asking him, rather than the man besides him.

Peter saw an opportunity. Erik was distracted and he – he needed to _go_. He needed to go, like, _five_ minutes ago. So he stood up, fulling intending on zipping out of the kitchen, out of the mansion entirely, maybe even the state. All he had to do was kill a few days before Erik inevitably left again and then Peter could experience his life in peace, without having to constantly evade the man or keep facing these difficult questions and-

A tug on his jacket made Peter halt in his tracks, glancing down. An invisible force clutched the thin strip of the jacket’s zipper as well as the metal buttons on the pockets. Erik glanced at him with a mild glare. “Running away?”

“I’m tired,” Peter tried to excuse, hoping he didn’t sound too petulant.

“Answer my question,” Erik said.

“Maybe I don’t know the answer,” Peter said.

Erik’s glare deepened. “That’s a lie and you know it, Maximoff,” he snapped and _oof_ , this was getting way more tense than probably necessary.

Peter spread his hands. “Maybe _you_ don’t want to know the answer,” he said, amazed at the fact that he sounded so much confident than he actually felt. “I-I mean, you’ll never actually know whether you would have wanted to know or not until you know what it is I’m talking about but I have a feeling that you don’t want to know, but that’s just me-,”

“Eight years ago you told me that your mother ‘knew a guy’ who could control _metal_ ,”

_Aaaaaaand…kaboom. There it is_.

“You only just remembered that?” Peter asked weakly, shoulders dropping. It definitely looked like Erik had _only_ _just_ come to that revelation. He was on his feet (a few inches taller than Peter, not many but enough to make him feel like a dumb teenager facing off with his Mom again), a little paler than usual, scanning Peter’s face with so much scrutiny that it made him squirm. Shit, was he blushing?

Erik was still _staring_. He _knew_. There was no denying it now.

“Listen,” Peter sighed, rubbing his eyes, trying to figure out what the best way out was – if there even _was_ a way out of this. “You, uh. Ught. You don’t have to…say anything, or _do_ anything-,”

“You _knew_?” Erik asked loudly.

Peter winced. “Kinda, yeah,”

He looked pissed. And maybe that was understandable. “Well, I’m glad you thought to inform me,” he drawled.

Understandable or not, his tone made Peter’s patience snap. “Oh, _hi_ , dad,” he said fiercely, sneering and sarcastic. “Wassup, I’m Peter, your twenty-four year old son that you didn’t know about and probably don’t even want-,”

“Maximoff, I never-,”

“Don’t mind me! I’m just gonna make myself a part of your life whether you like it or not, I won’t contribute anything besides making you feel like shit, making you think of the family you _used_ to have-,”

“ _Maximoff_ -,”

“-And generally I’ll just be a big ol’ disappointment for you to resent having around-,”

“Peter!” The exclamation was punctuated by the metal pen shooting off the counter to hit Peter squarely in the chest. He yelped at the contact, not painful or sharp, just surprising and annoying. He went to open his mouth to whine and complain and keep rambling but the glare that Erik gave him was _fierce_.

Shit, it was just like _Mom’s_ glares. Peter shut up to let him speak almost instinctively. Suddenly he felt like he was fourteen, not twenty-four, and his _father_ was _telling him off_.

It would have been laughable had he not been holding back so much emotion.

“You talk too much,” Erik said, a tired-sounding observation that sounded nothing like the biting remarks Peter had been imagining in his head. “And amazingly, every word was wrong,”

Peter groaned and sat down heavily on his stool again, leaning backwards into the counter. “ _Please_ ,” he grumbled, feeling totally patronised and trapped in some sort of cliché theatrical performance. Couldn’t Erik just walk out of the room without another word and leave him be? Wouldn’t that be in-character for him?

Instead, Erik grabbed his arm and swivelled him around, making him face him. “Your mother?” he said, a demand posed as a statement. “Marya Eisenhardt, I presume?”

“Yep,” Peter said, allowing himself a shred of relief that Erik actually remembered her. It might have been a lot more awkward had he not. “She, uh…she’s not around, though. She died when I was born. Labour complications,”

“I…I see. I’m sorry to hear that,”

“Her sister, Matilda – I mean, uh, Mathilde, she raised me,”

“Marya’s half-sister…I should have remembered the surname,” Erik rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his hand moving around to his cheek, to his forehead, to cover his eyes as he let his head fall. Usually Erik looked pretty good for his age – it was a mutant thing – but right now he looked every one of his forty-something years.

“…You’re not as, um… _surprised_ as I thought you’d be,” said Peter admittedly. Looking back on their conversation so far, Erik hadn’t freaked out. Hadn’t had a moment of contemplation or a complete ‘oh shit’ expression that usually came with dudes finding out they’d gotten someone knocked up. “…You knew, too?” Peter realised out-loud.

Erik sighed heavily. “I have…suspected,” he corrected. “Not very many men can control metal,”

Oh. Okay. That was…unexpected. It made sense, but it was still…Shit, did that mean Erik had been wondering about Peter being his son since the _Pentagon incident?!_ Eight whole years? Meanwhile Peter had been trying to run away from this very problem for _six_ years thinking that he’d never find a way to approach the subject and that he’d have to live for the rest of his life with this big secret because he was scared of his father’s reaction and-

Wait, did that mean he’d _suspected_ when they’d been fighting Apocalypse? Because that was a _miserable_ thought _._

The silence dragged on for a while. It might have only been a couple of seconds, though it felt like hours to Peter. He found himself slumped on his stool, joining Erik in staring at the photo on the counter, both with melancholy looks. Erik had his hand on it, forefinger tapping idly against Peter’s in-photo sweater – and then moving to hover over Wanda.

Peter croaked out before Erik could speak, “Please don’t ask me about her,”

Erik lifted his head, looking more distraught than Peter expected – the display of emotion wedged a lump in his throat. “Should I know who she is, too?” Erik asked. Peter nodded, and something must have shown in his face that gave him his answer. A muscle jumped in the man’s jaw. “I see,”

“I’ll talk about it another time,” promised Peter, knowing it’d be cruel to let _that_ sit on his father’s mind for too long. “Just…not tonight. I-I, um, I think I’m gonna head up to bed, actually. I’m tired,”

“Right,” said Erik, clearing his throat.

They both straightened. Peter took his half-eaten cupcake and half-drank soda to the trash at a normal pace, Erik similarly pouring out his untouched cup of tea and rinsing out the dishes mechanically. Peter binned the leftover cupcake left on his saucer at super-speed for him, pretending not to have moved when Erik did a double-take.

In typical _Peter_ fashion, Peter gave a cheeky salute and wandered leisurely towards the kitchen door. “See ya round,” he said in the lightest, easiest tone he could summon.

Erik said nothing in return and that was how they parted, the mansion around them quiet and darkened. The air itself was weighed down by that evening’s revelations.

Peter didn’t sleep, didn’t even stay inside the mansion. He ended up taking himself on that jog around the state he’d been thinking of before. At one point, he felt a nudge inside his mind – a question from Charles, asking, _is everything alright?_ Peter sent back the closest thing he could to an imaginary nod and kept running. And running, running, runnning-

Eventually he collapsed and cried for a while, though he would never admit that to anyone.

Peter almost didn’t want to return to the mansion when the sun started to rise again, though he ended up forcing himself to. He couldn’t _literally_ run away from his problems, no matter how much he wanted to. _There’s nothing to be scared of_ , he told himself as he approached the gates to Xavier’s school. _Nothing you haven’t thought of already will happen – either you’ll meet your own expectations or be pleasantly surprised. It’s fine. I bet he’s already left._

Erik _hadn’t_ left. Peter took a diversion to Charles’s office to peek in on his way to his room and saw his father in there, brooding over a metallic chessboard as well as something else. Peter didn’t stick around for long enough to find out, terrified of being spotted and all of his anxieties becoming reality.

Peter hid in his room for as long as he could that day, napping intermittently and clearing out his Twinkie stash. Eventually, Ororo burst in uninvited to drag him out of his hidey-hole, declaring that that was time for another communal chilled-out afternoon in the common room – man, it was Saturday again already. Peter relented to her encouragement, if only to give himself something _else_ to think about besides emotionally-constipated and distant fathers, as well as to avoid being cornered later in the day by Ororo and the reinforcements she’d gather if she suspected something was up with him, which would include all of the X-Men.

What Peter hadn’t expected from himself was to end up sat on the sofa with his friends – him on the far right, Ororo in the centre, Kurt on her left – and _falling asleep_. Maybe running around the state for the entire night wasn’t the smartest thing to do, in hindsight. When Peter woke up again a couple of hours later, his friends were gone, a blanket was draped over him, he felt snug and warm and _hungry_ as hell-

But he wasn’t _totally_ alone.

“Sorry,” Erik said awkwardly, standing over Peter with a plate of something and dangerously uncertain look on his face. The warm glow of a standing lamp, the room’s only source of light (somehow it was already dark again outside, how long had Peter been passed out-?). “Did I disturb you?”

“No,” said Peter slowly, his eyes instinctively drawn to the plate. Food?

Erik handed him the plate, almost robotically. “Charles hinted you might want this,”

_Food!_ “Thanks, man,” Peter said genuinely, accepting the plate eagerly. It was laden with a bunch of fruits, cut up for easy eating – not his go-to sort of snack, but quick and easy to eat and full of enough ‘good stuff’ to line his stomach until he got himself to a McDonalds. No doubt Hank had made up the plate for Peter, or maybe he’d told Erik to do it. The good doctor was always on Peter’s ass about his diet, even though his metabolism was so fast that it made little difference what he ate. He ate all of the fruit anyways, so hungry and thirsty that he cleared the plate within ten seconds. Erik was still stood there when Peter finished, leaning forwards to place the empty plate on the coffee table.

“You didn’t have to, y’know, go out of your way to…” Peter gestured vaguely up at Erik, scratching the back of his neck.

Surprisingly, it didn’t feel _too_ awkward between them. Not yet. How long was that going to last?

“I wanted to,” said Erik. Somehow, he sounded a little different this evening. “You need to take care of yourself,”

“I _do_ ,” insisted Peter, but Erik just quirked a brow. “I _try_ ,” he amended. Damn it, he knew he was blushing like a scolded kid.

Erik hummed, sounding almost amused – his lips even twitching into the shadow of a smirk. Peter scoffed and sunk back into the sofa with his blanket pulled up to his chin. He pretended that he was sulking over the comment, when in reality he was practically _preening._ He couldn’t keep himself from glancing back up at his father just to take in that amused expression again.

Peter could see Wanda in that smirk. Huh.

_This is fine_ , Peter allowed himself to think, even though he was expecting _everything_ to go to shit in the next few seconds. _I could get used to this. This is…nice. Ooh, it feels like I’m jinxing it already._

“You left this,” said Erik, tone light and unassuming. He set something on the arm of the sofa next to Peter. It was – shit, it was his photo. _I left that?!_ “I hope you don’t mind that I had Hank make a copy of it. For me,”

Peter reeled, his heart doing a funny flop as his eyes widened. “Y-You did?” he spluttered.

Erik nodded, appearing almost _meek_ , and that…

Shit, if that didn’t make Peter feel a lot better about a bunch of things. “That’s fine,” he said quietly. “I don’t mind,”

“Good,” said Erik.

Peter agreed, “Good,”

_Good_ , he thought. _Okay, cool. We’re at the ‘good’ stage. And the ‘I want to leave you a snack for when you wake up’ stage. And the ‘I want to keep a picture of you and your sister’ stage. That’s a lot of stages to cross in, like, thirty seconds._ But was Peter complaining? Hell no.

“I’ll leave you be,” Erik told him. “Though I was wondering…tomorrow, would we be able to…?”

“Talk?” Peter finished, glancing down at Wanda’s smiling face and feeling something shift. “…Sure, yeah. I’m down,”

“Good,”

“Good,”

Erik let out a chuckle. He even reached out and patted Peter’s shoulder. Peter’s heart jumped with each pat. “You won’t run? Again?” he checked, but tone was now teasing. They were at the _teasing_ stage. What next, the hugging stage?

(Peter kinda wished-)

“Nope,” Peter shook his head. He turned his head to meet Erik’s gaze fully as the dude crouched down by the side of the sofa, putting himself at his eye-level. “You’re not so bad when you’re not launching pens at me,” he quipped, hoping that'd somehow explain the newfound ease they felt between them this evening.

Erik rolled his eyes. “I meant what I said when I finally managed to interrupt,” he said earnestly, hand still on Peter’s shoulder. “You were wrong about those things you said. I want you to be in my life – if you’ll allow that. I could never resent you, nor see you as a disappointment. I...need you to understand that for me,”

“Yessir,” said Peter, clearing his suddenly-tight throat and blinking rapidly. Erik’s hand squeezed his shoulder in alarm, telling him that he was being really obvious. He choked out a half-laugh, “Damn you, I’ve got allergies,”

Erik said, “Ah,” and nodded, humouring him. His hand squeezed again, then moved away.

Peter’s disappointment lasted a split second, because the hand was moving towards his head and it tugged purposefully on the beanie Peter still had on, having neglected to remove it before, during and after last night’s long-ass run. Peter felt his hair go all sticky-up and messy as the beanie was removed. He groaned in distaste, reaching up to flatten everything down – but Erik beat him to it, smoothing a palm over his hair. Usually, Peter never let anyone touch his hair, not before or after Apocalypse got his hands on it. His _father_ , however...Peter could allow his father to brush it down for him. He even felt himself smiling, and at that prompting Erik let his hand linger on the side of Peter’s face.

He opened his mouth to say something – something sweet and paternal, maybe – only to stop himself and frown thoughtfully.

“You weren’t lying about your ears being cold,” he said instead, fingers pressing against the constantly-cool shell of his ear.

Peter barked out a laugh and if anyone asked, he _totally_ wasn’t leaning eagerly into his father’s warm touch. “I never lie,” he said with solemnity, and Erik hummed distractedly.

Erik was staring at him, like he had been last night - but it was _different_ to last night. He wasn’t searching for something this time round. His face was relaxed and there was a small smile on his face, vulnerable and personal. His eyes (the same steely-blue as Wanda’s used to be, before their mutations) were warm, steadily filling with something that Peter was afraid to put a name on this early on. No way were they at _that_ stage yet, but…

Peter felt like they _could_ get there one day.

Erik’s hand lingered for just a second or so, thumb swiping over the top of Peter’s cheekbone with surprising tenderness. He then let his hand drop, tucked the corner of the blanket more securely around Peter’s shoulders, and stood up. Their father-son moment was over and Peter was already eager for the next one.

“See you in the morning, old man,” Peter said up to him, settling into the sofa once more. It looked like he was crashing here; he’d just been _tucked in_ by his dad, pretty much. _No way_ was he moving, this was like his ten-year-old-self's dream come true.

“I’ll see you in the morning, Peter,” Erik said in return. As he walked out of the common room, he left a very contented, very relieved, very _happy_ speedster in his wake – one who found himself falling asleep again with far more ease and peace than he’d felt in a long time.

A couple of hours later (because healthy sleep schedules were for the _weak_ ), Peter was up and running round again, hunting for his fill of carbs and calories to make up for his last day or so without proper nutrition. He went for a jog around Westchester county, then spend the hours leading up to sunrise doing odd work around the mansion – small jobs, really, but they kept him occupied for a while before the mansion’s residents began to stir.

Peter figured he’d probably find Erik at breakfast. That they'd greet each other, eat, then find someplace that was quiet - like the library or out by the lake - where they’d sit down and discuss everything. Peter’s mother, his twin sister, his mutation and childhood. Maybe even Erik's late wife, his daughter, his parents. Peter found himself wanting to know about them.

Peter wanted this relationship. He wanted this _family_ , even if most of them were dead and gone, existing only in old memories and photos. Peter wanted to know his father – _and_ , though it hurt, he wanted his father to know all about his sister. Peter still feared having to talk about her, having to relive her death by thinking about her, but…

Wanda deserved to be a part of Erik’s family as much as Peter, no matter where she was now.

Peter was excited. Finally, after ten long years, things seemed to be looking up.

* * *

Imagine Peter’s surprise when a cloud of red magic, sparking and smoking, burst into existence right behind him as he stepped into the mansion’s dining hall for breakfast.

Imagine his surprise when the magic sang to him, so _familiar_ and comforting, inviting him in. Tendrils of scarlet smoke wrapped around his ankles and dragged him back, as threatening as it was enticing. The voice of his sister called to him – a voice Peter hadn’t heard in a decade – and Peter knew, he _knew_ there was no way it could really be _her,_ but it sounded so _real_ and it had been so _long_ and god he _missed_ his sister-

Erik was there, amongst many others. Peter’s friends and teammates and famiy were all screaming for him, swarming towards him, their powers combining to seize him back. The red magic wrapped itself around Peter, a barrier erecting itself between him and them. Behind Peter’s eyes, he saw _Wanda_ standing there. They were fifteen and she was protecting him from their stepfather after he’d taken it a step too far, not for the first time but certainly for the last.

Wanda took his life that day – by accident, of course, but that meant little to her.

She took her _own_ life a couple of weeks later.

Grief flooded through Peter at the resurgence of the memory. He barely managed to meet Charles’s horrified gaze and gasp out, “ _Wanda!_ ” before the magic consumed him.

* * *

Imagine Pietro’s surprise when, as he met Wanda at her front door, his mind kept providing him with the images of a random man. He didn’t think he knew the man, though he did look a _lot_ like Wanda. They shared the same nose, the same cheekbones, a similar jaw and identical smiles.

Pietro tried to recall when he must have met this mystery dude, but all he could remember was a desperate, pleading cry and an outstretched hand that Peter had so badly wanted to grab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo I came up with that ending idea before I saw the Wandavision finale and no I will not be changing it because 1) angst and 2) I just had the idea before the finale happened okay, I didn't want to change my idea.
> 
> A big part of writing this chapter was me just struggling with finding Erik's voice and making him believably *Magneto* (i.e. kinda standoffish and terse) but also *Dadneto*. Thus there's not too much fluff because their relationship just isn't there yet. I feel like having minimal fluff, in meaningful instances, is as equally sweet as lots of fluff anyway (let me know if you agree!).
> 
> I won't be continuing with this as a series or anything, even though I know it's kind of a painful cliffhanger. I just don't have the time or commitment for that sort of thing (nor really any inspiration lol) though if I end up finishing one of the other Dadneto projects I have in the works, I'll post them for sure. Thank you to everyone who read this and liked and commented and stuff and I'm sorry if this didn't help with finale blues, I realise that angst is probably not what most people want rn but...Idk this is just how I roll, and how I felt the fic should roll.
> 
> My tumblr is @hedgehodgy btw :) Happy to talk about Dadneto!


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